How do we decide whats important? How do you decide what to leave behind? This is a story of achieving balance and connecting with the people we love to help us find balance. Hurricane Irma helped me find that.

On Monday morning, I received a message on Messenger from my Mom. “They are downsizing and if you would like your family heirlooms. You need to come now. Call me tonight.” I was at work and called her on my lunch break.

It wasn’t a long conversation. Everything was going in storage, so I needed to come and get the older items to keep them safe. In the meantime, a category 5 monster was churning in the Atlantic, and we didn’t know what direction it was going to turn.

I called my fiancé to see if we could do it. He is my rock, and I depend on him to help me make the right choices when it comes to work. You see I am a workaholic. I don’t take a lot of time off. I have no sense of balance. We have a meter that tells me when I’ve worked too many hours or days in a row. It's his grumpy meter. This week, I took an extra day off because the grumpy meter was in the red. We had three days to get it done.

“We need a fourth,” he said. “and a rental.”

The next task was a rental. Enterprise in Morehead City had a truck, and I made the reservation.

The first mandatory evacuation announcement was made for the Florida Keys.

I sent him a text that we had a truck and called my boss. He was great.

“Is it part of the evacuation?” was the first thing out of his mouth.

I was confused. “No, not an evacuation. My parents are just moving and need some help.”

Now some of you are thinking I’m crazy and ignorant, but I do watch the news. My retail readers will know that during the holiday weekends on the calendar you get sucked into a vacuum. Nothing matters but the business and my customers. I go on auto mode and home exhausted each night. Monday was Labor Day, and it had been extra busy. I knew the storm was coming, and we were preparing here on the East Coast, but I hadn’t even thought of the evacuation that was taking place in Key West.

​My extra day was set, and I sent my guy a text to let him know I would be in North Carolina Monday night.